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RogerRoast writes "Astrocytes are the most ubiquitous cells in the brain. They perform critical support function to the neurons. These cells are also implicated in several human brain disorders. The U of Wisconsin researchers developed a method to create these cells from stem cells. According to the lead author Dr Zhang, 'not a lot of attention has been paid to these cells because human astrocytes have been hard to get, but we can make billions or trillions of them from a single stem cell.' The technology developed by the Wisconsin group lays a foundation to make all the different species of astrocytes. It may be possible to genetically engineer them to mimic disease so that previously inaccessible neurological conditions can be studied in the lab."

If God wanted man to fly, he'd have given him wings.If God wanted man to travel outside the planet, he'd have given him the ability to breath in space.If God wanted man to live through a heart attack, he'd have given him an internal defibrillator.If God wanted man to travel the oceans, he'd have given him flippers.

Seems to me that what "God wants" is an inherently outdated list of things that we deliberately break, through choice, every day.

If God wanted man to fly, he'd have given him wings.
If God wanted man to travel outside the planet, he'd have given him the ability to breath in space.
If God wanted man to live through a heart attack, he'd have given him an internal defibrillator.
If God wanted man to travel the oceans, he'd have given him flippers.

Here's another one for the list, but with opposite implication:
"If God wanted us to go around naked, we'd be born that way" - Oscar Wilde.

I've done some websearches on the matter, and 1) the quote comes around phrased in various slightly different ways, all attributed to Oscar Wilde, 2) there is no source to be found for the quote(s) at all and 3) the quote(s) are also attributed to various other people, including Marc Twain, all also unsourced.I also think the quip is so obvious that it must have existed almost as long as the "if the gods had wanted us to do X they would have given us Y" argument. And "the best way to sound authoritative, is

Proper citation? If you are not going to go look for it, then how would you know if the answer posted is correct or not? It was Kirk: Captain's log, stardate 3715.3 In this case I don't think it matters who said it or when. The point is still a valid one.If you wanted to correct him and say some other person said that and then give a citation, go for it. Don't give a citation..

If you wanted to correct him and say some other person said that and then give a citation, go for it.

I only asked for info (maybe in the name of an exaggerated precision... this is why is called pedantic mode, you know?).I googled the phrase, couldn't decide the origin, took my chances and asked: maybe somebody actually knows for sure.

Following you on the "straw man" slope: why are you so inclined to take a question as a covert action of casting doubt on the message or poster? Can't questions be just that: questions and nothing more?(how does it feel to have words put in your mouth?)

And it was a fair question. In fairness to you, I did search a bit but did not find an attribution with a proper citation.

It's one of those quotes I've come across many times on the web and did not bother to try tracking down before. Most places attribute it to Oscar Wilde, and one or two attribute it to Mark Twain. Perhaps it has been attributed to others also. It's certainly a pithy and witty comment which one could imagine either of those gentlemen coming up with. However, it is not listed among the q

You're missing the tie-breaker: Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve. This loops from your 10th vertebrae down into the chest cavity, under the aorta, and back up to the larynx.

The only answers to this from religion are either "bad design" implying that God is fallible and can make mistakes, or "God works in mysterious ways / is testing our faith" which are thought-terminating cliches.

If God wanted Man to have stem cells, he'd have mentioned that someplace in Genesis.

I don't know, growing a human from an adult's rib - sure sounds like transdifferentiation of hematopoietic stem cells to me. Or did god just happen to choose one of the tissues that contain adult stem cells?

Aye. If I understand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrocyte#Functions [wikipedia.org] right, if neurons are the transistors, astrocytes are the wiring, circuit board and sundry capacitors/resistors. Disclaimer: I'm neither a neuroscience nor an electronics major.

Just you wait, in 30 years time we will be the jocks and the new nerds will have craniums twice the normal size. They will mock our puny intellects from their 7 foot tall vantage point, then don their robes and wizard hats before going off to have sex with the other blond haired blue eyed cosmetic-commercial-perfect super nerds.

Many of those who consider themselves "religious" are smart enough to know that there are two types of stem cells: embryonic and adult stem cells. We only have issue with the embryonic cells due to the method generally used to collect them (abortions). Many are reasonable enough (including myself) to have no issue with cells harvested from the afterbirth of normal non-abortive births - the issue is that using cells from abortions creates a demand for cells from abortions, which in turn creates a social be

It may be possible to genetically engineer them to mimic disease so that previously inaccessible neurological conditions can be studied in the lab.

Hey, they've only been inaccessible because we've been unwilling to do to a few unlucky people what we do to lab animals all the time: put them down and harvest their diseased brains for research. It's for the Common Good of Man!

I dunno, you suggest the systematic murder and possible torture (the 'test animals' part there)of other human beings who have done nothing wrong other than having the bad luck to contract a horrible disease.

The alternative opinion is that society would allow those who are incapable of contributing to society in any meaningful way to have a lasting and important impact on the future of humanity by helping to prevent or cure debilitating diseases. Some people who feel that they have no purpose in life, due to debilitating / terminal illness, may be grateful for that opportunity, which you would deny them based upon your own maybe misguided morality.

On the one hand, I kindof agree with the cold engineering take on it. On the other hand, I'm well aware that I'll suddenly like it a whole damn lot less when it turns out to be someone I care about. Being able to project 'who I care about' to 'who someone else cares about' is of course where the sociopath has trouble.

The possibilities for the rehab of spinal cord injury patients is enough to make this an easy application of stem cell research, which might just earn the stem cell researchers some much needed good publicity from Washington.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the importance of astrocytes. I didn't know that they are linked to certain neurological diseases. But at least for information processing they seem to be quite unimportant. There is a study that was published in Science where the researchers basically knocked out the signaling of all astrocytes in mice and the behaviour of the animals changed only marginally. A summary of this debate was published last year in an open access article in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101110/full/468160a.html [nature.com]

The article linked to says both. Shame on slashdot not being more specific as there's a world of difference between adult stem cells and embryonic in behavior post creation and transformation. Anybody know what the percentages were and the success of each type as far as remaining "safe" after the creation?

Stop trolling. Please. If you're serious in your belief, you're doing absolutely no good trying to spout it off here, as you're coming across as an idiot rather than an intelligent person with something to contribute. Please don't make it harder for the rest of us out there who have faith to be able to hold intelligent discourse with other non-believing human beings.

The U of Wisconsin researchers developed a method to create these cells from stem cells.

Alright, not trolling here, just genuinely curious. My understanding, at last via information gleaned from Slashdot and other news-oriented sites, was that the US government contributes very little (relatively speaking) to the field of Stem Cell research; not only that, but they have tons of laws in place to complicate and/or hamstring such research, and the research is politically unpopular. It sounds like the USA should more or less fall off the face of the map in terms of groundbreaking Stem Cell researc

You are allowed to use "existing lines" of stem cells and still get federal funding. Additionally, if federal funding is eschewed in favor of private funding, there is no issue. Finally since the rapture happened on May 21st, there are no more fundamentalist Christians in office to block stem cell funding, so we are all looking forward to some positive policy changes (sorry couldn't resist that one).

The US government doesn't ban the use of embryonic stem cells, they simply aren't providing the funding for it. Other organizations are free to do so. In addition, a ton of research is being done with adult stem cells and if I'm not mistaken, the government does fund that kind of research. And the fact is that this country throws far, far more money at medical research than pretty much any other country on Earth. So either way the breakthroughs are inevitable.

I found it interesting that while the article (second link) claims that these can be induced from both "embryonic and induced human" stem cells, the abstract of the paper itself (first link) names only "human pluripotent stem cells" (ie "adult stem cells") and makes no mention of embryonic cells.

Both links refer to the one study, by the same people, so why does the second mention embryonic stem cells when the paper itself (or at least, the abstract) does not?